Love Works Wonders Part 42

"You cannot go out with those beautiful arms uncovered, Elinor," he said, gently.

He placed the shawl around her, trying to hide the coward, trembling fear.

"As though I did not love you," he said, reproachfully. "Show me another woman only half so fair."

Pauline made one more effort.

"Lady Darrell," she cried, with outstretched hands, "you will not decide hastily--you will take time to judge?"

But as they pa.s.sed out together, something in the delicate face told her that her love for Aubrey Langton was the strongest element in her nature.

"Lady Darrell," she cried again, "do not listen to him! I swear I have told you the truth--Heaven will judge between him and me if I have not!"

"You must have studied tragedy at the Porte St. Martin," said Aubrey Langton, with a forced laugh; "Lady Darrell knows which to believe."

She watched them walk across the lawn, Captain Langton pleading earnestly, Lady Darrell's face softening as she listened.

"I am too late!" cried the girl, in an agony of self-reproach. "All my humiliation is in vain; she will believe him and not me. I cannot save her now, but one word spoken in time might have done so."

Oh, the bitterness of the self-reproach that tortured her--the anguish of knowing that she could have prevented Lady Darrell's wrecking her whole life, yet had not done so! It was no wonder that she buried her face in her hands, weeping and praying as she had never wept and prayed in her life before.

"Elinor, look at me," said Captain Langton; "do I look like a thief and a would-be murderer?"

Out of Pauline's presence the handsome face had regained its usual careless, debonair expression.

She raised her eyes, and he saw in them the lingering doubt, the lingering fear.

"If all the world had turned against me," he said, "and had refused to believe in me, you, Elinor, my promised wife, ought to have had more faith."

She made no reply. There had been something in the energy of Pauline's manner that carried conviction with it; and the weak heart, the weak nature that had always relied upon others, could form no decision unaided.

"For argument sake, let us reverse the case. Say that some disappointed lover of yours came to tell to me that you had been discovered stealing; should I not have laughed? Why, Elinor, you must be blind not to see the truth; a child might discern it. The fact is that long ago I was foolish enough to believe myself in love with Miss Darrell; and she--well, honestly speaking, she is jealous. A gentleman does not like to refer to such things, but that is the simple truth. She is jealous, and would part us if she could; but she shall not. My beautiful Elinor is all my own, and no half-crazed, jealous girl shall come between us."

"Is it so, Aubrey?" asked Lady Darrell.

"My dearest Elinor, that is the whole secret of Miss Darrell's strange conduct to me. She is jealous--and you know, I should imagine, what jealous women are like."

She tried to believe him, but, when she recalled the n.o.ble face, with its pure light of truth and pity, she doubted again. But Captain Langton pleaded, prayed, invented such ridiculous stories of Pauline, made such fervent protestations of love, lavished such tender words upon her, that the weak heart turned to him again, and again its doubtings were cast aside.

"How we shall laugh over this in the happy after years!" he said. "It is really like a drama. Oh, Elinor, I am so thankful that I was here to save you! And now, my darling, you are trembling with cold. My fair, golden-haired Elinor, what must you think of that cruel girl? How could she do it? No; I will not go in again to-night--I should not be able to keep my temper. Your grand tragedy heroine will be gone to-morrow."

They stood together under the shadow of the balcony, and he drew her nearer to him.

"Elinor," he said, "I shall never rest again until you are my wife.

This plot has failed; Miss Darrell will plot again to part us. I cannot wait until the spring--you must be my wife before then. To-morrow morning I shall ride over to talk to you about it."

She clasped her arms round his neck, and raised her sweet face to his.

"Aubrey," she said, wistfully, "you are not deceiving me?"

"No, my darling, I am not."

He bent down and kissed her lips. She looked at him again, pleadingly, wistfully.

"Heaven will judge between us, Aubrey," she said, solemnly. "I have a sure conviction that I shall know the truth."

"I hope Heaven will a.s.sist you," he returned, lightly; "I am quite sure the decision will be in my favor."

And those words, so wickedly, so blasphemously false, were the last he ever spoke to her.

CHAPTER XL.

DYING IN SIN.

Captain Langton left Lady Darrell at the door of the porch, and went round to the stables. He was a man as utterly devoid of principle as any man could well be, yet the untruths he had told, the false testimony he had given, the false oaths he had taken, had shaken his nerves.

"I should not care to go through such a scene as that again," he said--"to stand before two women as before my judges."

He found his hands unsteady and his limbs trembling; the horse he had to ride was a spirited one. The captain half staggered as he placed his hand on the saddle.

"I am not very well," he said to one of the grooms; "go to the house and tell Frampton, the butler, to bring some brandy here."

In a few minutes the butler appeared with a tray, on which stood bottle and gla.s.s.

"This is some very old brandy, sir," he said, "and very strong."

But Captain Langton did not appear to heed him; he poured out half a tumblerful and drank it, while the butler looked on in amazement.

"It is very strong, sir," he repeated.

"I know what I am doing," returned the captain, with an oath.

He was dizzy with fear and with his after-success; he shuddered again as he mounted his horse, and the memory of Pauline's face and Pauline's words came over him. Then he galloped off, and Frampton, turning to the groom, with a scared face, said:

"If he gets home safely after taking so much of that brandy, and with that horse, I will never venture to say what I think again."

Lady Darrell returned to the library, where she had left Pauline. They looked at each other in silence, and then Lady Darrell said:

"I--I believe in him, Pauline; he cannot be what you say."

Miss Darrell rose and went up to her; she placed her in a chair, and knelt at her feet.